


Human Voices Wake Us

by the_glow_worm



Category: Thor (Movies), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Crossover, Gladiatorial combat, Gladiators, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, Touch-Starved, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-20 13:53:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11922273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_glow_worm/pseuds/the_glow_worm
Summary: Shiro is a veteran of many pit battles, in all the places where the Galra had seen fit to send him. But when a new challenger steps into his ring, he finds unlikely comfort--and hope--with Thor, prince of Asgard.





	Human Voices Wake Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OzQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OzQueen/gifts).



The noise of the arena struck him like a physical blow. Shiro braced against it, his head bowed as if walking into a strong wind. The crowd chanted the only name they ever knew for him.

 

_Champion! Champion!_

 

He had fought twenty-three battles in the twenty-three days that he had been here. It was the holy season of the coronation, in this distant corner of the universe, in this place where the Galra had sent him as a gift to their allies. Shiro had never known the Galra to have allies, but the universe was always revealing itself to be ever and ever stranger. Twenty-three days, twenty-three battles, and he had won every one.

 

His twenty-fourth was waiting for him. The crowd erupted into wild noise as he stepped further onto the sand, delirious on the bloodshed to come. The chanting seemed to barrage him from all sides. The shadows of the hovering spacecraft, of those rich enough to buy air seats, crossed over him. Shiro resolutely thought of nothing other than the weight of the sword in his hands.

 

His opponent had his back to him, seemingly surveying the crowd. Shiro noted the tallness of him, and the breadth of his shoulders. That alone did not worry him; he had fought larger opponents before, many times, and won.

 

As if alerted by the roaring of the crowd, the opponent turned to look at him. The face of his helmet was open, and Shiro saw his eyes.

 

Shiro was struck by a feeling like lightning, his blood suddenly roaring to life in his ears. It felt as if a thousand years had passed since he had last seen anyone who looked so human. Storm-blue eyes, and fair hair in a low tail under his helmet; he looked like a recruitment poster from the old Garrison on Earth. His heart was throwing itself against the cage of his chest. Human. He could be human.

 

The stranger flicked his mace through the air with the casual mastery of a trained warrior.

 

“You are the Champion?” he asked. His voice was pleasantly deep, in the way that human voices could be. Shiro had forgotten. “I am told that I must defeat you if I hope to go free again.”

 

“What’s your name?” Shiro said urgently, ignoring this. “Are you from Earth?” Desperation gripped him. “Please, are you human? Tell me!”

 

Whatever reply the stranger could have made was drowned out by the sudden howl of the crowd. The announcer, crest of plumage raised high above her head, stepped out onto the hovering platform.

 

"The fight begins!" she cried, to ecstatic cheers. Shiro let out a frustrated growl. "The people's favorite, fighting for the glory of our Galra allies, the _Champion_! And standing against him is our challenger—once a prince of Asgard, the mighty Thor! Yes, Asgard," she repeated, as the audience hissed. “Even the Asgardians will spill their blood on the holy sands!”

 

Shiro drew in a thin breath. Asgard sounded like no place he had ever heard of, and there were no princes on Earth anymore. He closed his eyes, just for a moment. The air felt colder, as if it was rushing into the place in his chest where hope had anchored. He opened his eyes again, forced himself to breathe. He would win this fight, as he had won the others; he would leave this man—this prince of Asgard—bleeding in the sand, and retreat back to his cell and try to remember a life worth returning to. He raised his sword and attacked.

 

Thor skipped back from the lunge, sending sand spraying everywhere, and countered with a sweep of his own mace. A smile, gleaming white and fierce, spread over his face.

 

“Ah, a fine warrior!” he cried, when Shiro, cat-quick, caught the blow on the base of his sword. They disengaged, and Shiro backed away, waiting for Thor to get in the next move. They made it worse for him, sometimes, if he made the fight too quick.

 

“I’m glad one of us is enjoying the fight,” said Shiro bitterly. He read the barest hint of motion in Thor’s shifting muscles, and leapt out of the way. Thor struck only a cloud of sand where Shiro had been. Shiro circled back, tense and wary.

 

"You never told me your name," said Thor, as casual as if they had met at the bar. "Or is Champion what your mother called you?" He grinned again as he twisted away from the sudden flick of Shiro's blade. "Prescient, if so."

 

The humor in his voice was like a song in a foreign language. Shiro tightened his grip on his sword. His palm was sweating.

 

"Takashi Shirogane," he said eventually, half against his will. He had not heard his own name in an age.

 

"An Earth name," said Thor thoughtfully. "You are far from home, Takashi Shirogane."

 

"Farther than you know.” Shiro twisted and lunged. Their weapons clashed, and clashed again. Shiro pressed the attack forward. Thor was skilled, but Shiro was the veteran of many pit battles, in all the places where the Galra had seen fit to send him. If he took him in the shoulder, Shiro thought, it might be enough to end the match and still leave him alive, if he could get under the man’s guard—

 

Thor twisted around, lithe as a big cat, and caught him on his unprotected side. Shiro didn’t actually register the blow itself; only flying through the air, an enormous pain in his side, and then landing hard in the sand halfway across the arena.

 

“Do you yield, Champion?” Thor called jovially. Shiro heard the whistling of the mace as he swung it through the air, apparently for the entertainment of the crowd.

 

Shiro spat out sand from his mouth, conscious of shock more than pain. _I’ve been starting to believe my own legend_ , he thought to himself dryly. His ribs were in immense pain; broken, perhaps, but he knew from past experience that he would be able to fight through the wound. He got to his feet. His sword was a clean fifteen feet away, and almost not worth reaching for in any case. No one with a choice in the matter would match a single-handed short sword against a mace; his captors had intended all along for Shiro to use his _other_ weapon.

 

Thor advanced on him again, faster than any man of his bulk ought to be. Snarling, Shiro took one deliberate step forward and then another, ignoring the pain in his side. It was time to finish it.

 

Ten feet away from him, Thor leapt into the air, mace held high. The floodlights of the arena cast an unearthly glow around him, gilding him as if by the light of a distant sun. Shiro picked his spot, and waited.

 

When the mace came down upon him, Shiro raised his Galra right arm and caught it in his palm. Thor looked at him, astonished, when the mace wouldn’t move from Shiro’s cybernetically enhanced grip. Their eyes locked. From so close Shiro could see storms and shadows move through Thor’s eyes. No human had those eyes—he thought, at least, but he couldn’t be sure. He felt unbalanced, as though the sands were shifting beneath him. Thor grinned at him despite their locked arms, strangely boyish.

 

Shiro felt the heat of Galra fire move through him, and the mace shattered in his hand. But something crackled when it broke, and a surge of electricity found the quintessence of his hand—and reacted.

 

The explosion cast them both backwards into the sand.

 

* * *

 

 

In the cell he slept, surfacing in and out of shallow dreams like a swimmer in a turbulent ocean. Faces floated up to him, but without any detail; Shiro looked at them and only _felt_ that he ought to feel something. He longed to know what they had meant to them, if they had meant anything to him at all--if he had meant anything to them.

 

Shiro knew, of course, that the hole was in his head, but his heart was where he felt it; an absence that was almost a presence in its own right. Something vital had been removed from him, scooped out of his chest and replaced with a trickle of sand.

 

The last face he saw was his own. It felt as strange to him as the rest.

 

He woke in the medbay to find Thor lying in the next bed, his feet hitched up against the wall and a sling around his arm.

 

“Good morning,” said Thor. "Arifjor says there'll be eggs for breakfast." He gestured to the guard standing just outside the door, purple-feathered with blue clan markings on his beak, whom Shiro had never heard utter so much as a single word. As Shiro blinked at him, confused, Thor leaned in closer and with a lowered voice said, "Not— _their_ eggs, as I understand it, but some sort of tame lizard. You needn't worry."

 

It hadn’t occurred to Shiro to be concerned about that, but he supposed that was some kind of relief. Shiro prodded at his ribs. A blue webbing pulsed over his injured side. Most of the bone fractures would have healed overnight, but his muscles still felt sore. It would do for now.

 

“I am also told,” said Thor after a moment, “that I gave a most creditable performance last night. And since neither of us triumphed over the other, I will be given the honor to fight you again tonight.”

 

Shiro kept his silence, although Thor, watching him, seemed to be waiting for a reply. 

 

“You’ll be the first,” he said eventually. “The rest of them disappeared after I fought them.”

 

Thor frowned. “How many—”

 

“Never mind that,” said Shiro roughly. He paused. “I know you’ve been to Earth. You recognized my name. But—you’re not from there, are you?”

 

“I am not, yet I do spend a great deal of time on Earth these days,” acknowledged Thor. “My job is there. Er, part-time, as it were. A noble planet, filled with many mighty warriors. I was not surprised to learn you were of the Midgard lineage.”

 

Shiro stared, a wild dizzying hope rising up within him. “Listen, I—I _have_ to return to Earth. I have people waiting on me. Relying on me. At least—I think I do.” He suppressed his disquiet. He didn’t know where else to start looking for the faces in his dreams.

 

“It is very easy to travel to Earth from Asgard,” Thor said. “A most convenient commute, I should say. Getting to Asgard—that is another matter.”

 

“Could you do it from here?” asked Shiro, pitching his voice low. “If we were able to escape?”

 

“I imagine so,” said Thor. “Navigating there will not be the difficulty.”

 

“It’s the one we have to start with.”

 

Thor offered him a smile so big that it crinkled his eyes. “We?”

 

Shiro could feel the corners of his own mouth beginning to twitch. “You don’t have an objection, do you? After all, I am a mighty warrior from a noble planet. Are you in or not?”

 

“I am, as you say, in.” Thor leapt up as if they already had a plan. He seemed to fill up the entire room with his eagerness. “It will be a true honor to work with you, Takashi Shirogane.”

 

“You really have to stop calling me that,” he said. “It’s just Shiro.”

 

It almost didn’t matter that they didn’t know where to begin. The sound of a friendly voice was everything. Shiro asked Thor a thousand questions, just for the pleasure of hearing him tell the answers; he asked about Asgard (the jewel of the Nine Realms! Lately fallen on some, er, hard times. You shall have to see it soon) and how he had come to be there (base treachery, my friend. Nothing but base treachery).

 

He hungered for news from Earth, but Thor’s stories only made him realize how much must have changed since he had left. The Avengers—Chitauri—Tony Stark was a superhero now? They found Captain America? And—Ultron? The unfamiliar names made his head spin.

 

Thor had never heard of Garrison, which troubled Shiro, but he apparently enjoyed Tokyo greatly, and was able to assure Shiro that his hometown had suffered no major destruction in the past few years. Shiro let out a shaky sigh of relief.

 

“It feels so strange,” he remarked. “You say you’re an alien, but you know more about Earth now than I do. I guess I have a lot of catching up to do if I ever get back.”

 

“Earth is always changing so fast,” said Thor in sympathy. “Part of what makes it so exciting! I was always coming by to see that you were using iron instead of bronze. Just on my last visit, I bought a brand new smartphone! Yet now it is at least three so-called generations in the past.” He shrugged. “They call them generations, although I have never seen them breed or have offspring—”

 

“Wait— _you_ have an Earth name,” interrupted Shiro, realizing. He struck his own forehead with his hand, feeling like an idiot. “My mom is Scandinavian. There are Thors in my own family tree.”

 

Thor laughed outright. “It was my name long before it was ever given to the sons of man.”

 

But the buzz of euphoria faded as it got closer and closer to evening, until it was nothing more than a heavy weight in Shiro’s stomach. The guards appeared, beckoning for them to follow. Shiro felt himself retreating further into himself with every footstep.

 

“How many times will they send us out onto the sand?” Thor asked eventually, as they began to hear the noise of the arena.

 

“Until one of us dies,” said Shiro flatly.

 

Thor paused, jostling the guards. There was something astonished in his eyes. "How many times have you had to this, Shiro?"

 

The calm of battle had already descended on him. Shiro said, emotionless,

 

"You were my twenty-fourth. In this arena, I mean. Before this I fought in the court of Azar-3, and before that, I was part of the Wild Hunt on a Galra pleasure planet.” He still thought of those hounds, sometimes; five feet at the shoulder and utterly silent when they moved, their blood hot as fire when he cut them open. “There were five other planets before that, at least, that I can remember.”

 

There was no more time to talk. The guards grabbed Thor by the shoulders, pulling him to the tunnel that would lead to the other gate. He did not resist, but Shiro saw him twisting to look back at him. Concern was written all over his face; Shiro only felt it distantly touch him. He picked up his sword.

 

The noise of the arena struck him like a blow.

 

* * *

 

 

The crowd never tired of them. Night after night, they watched them fight each other until they were falling down and exhausted, and yet it demanded more.

 

Shiro knew he ought not to complain. If either of them began to bore the crowd, even for a minute, they would inevitably be separated. Shiro would be sent back to the Galra; or perhaps Thor would be the one to go, to be replaced by a string of slathering monsters or poor, desperate prisoners.

 

They stumbled back from the latest fight, leaning against each other, feeling more than half-dead. They had been given energy whips, which inflicted agony onto the body but did not cut the skin or break the bones; they had been refused the medbay, and the guards only pushed them into the cell they shared with a complete lack of sympathy.

 

They laid down next to each other without thinking about it, hands still gripping each other’s shoulders, so close that Thor’s breath ruffled Shiro’s hair.

 

Shiro closed his eyes. Remnants of pain were still chasing down his nerves, his arm twitching as if he still felt the lash of the whip in Thor’s hand. He fisted his fingers around the cloth of Thor’s shirt, trying to stop himself from flinching.

 

There was movement, and something warm and living covered up his hand. Thor, holding Shiro’s hand in his. Shiro opened his eyes. Thor was looking at him steadily, his eyes just visible in the dimness.

 

“I wish to ask you a question,” he said. “But I also do not wish to distress you.”

 

“Ask it,” said Shiro, without hesitation.

 

“The others,” said Thor. “The ones before me. Did you kill them all?”

 

He had expected the question, but he had not ever been able to decide how to answer. Some of his opponents had survived, Shiro thought, but it was impossible to know which. He could not remember their faces, hardly even bothered to look at them to begin with. He never saw them again anyway, not after he watched their blood soak into the sand.

 

Shiro took a sharp, struggling breath.

 

“I didn’t want to kill any of them,” he said. He was whispering. His chest ached. Thor’s hand had come up to his cheek, and was sweeping something away from beneath his eye. “I didn’t.”

 

“It is a heavy burden, to take a life,” Thor said solemnly. “It took me far too long to realize that. If you know it already, you are a wiser man than I.” His arm came around Shiro and pulled him closer to his chest.

 

Sudden warmth suffused every inch of his body. Thor ran hotter than an ordinary man, or maybe it only seemed that way to Shiro. It eased inside of him, relaxing his muscles, chasing away the lingering pain. He leaned his head against Thor’s chest, feeling the steady _thump-thump-thump_ of the mighty heart inside. They were silent within the embrace, and then Thor abruptly said,

 

"I hope you can forgive me.”

 

Shiro tilted his head back. "What?"

 

"I, uh, refer to my behavior earlier. I must have acted an ass."

 

"You're gonna have to clarify," said Shiro, before he could think of how that sounded. "Wait—I didn't mean—"

 

Thor was already roaring with laughter. It split the darkness; a bright, merry sound. Shiro could not help but laugh, too; the sound of it startled him.

 

“You know of which I mean!” protested Thor, sobering. “My behavior, during that first fight. I did not yet realize the conditions of your captivity. It must have been greatly distasteful to you.”

 

“I haven’t thought about it,” said Shiro, with complete honesty. “That was—that was before I knew you were going to stay. I didn’t know yet that I was going to actually care.” He swallowed. The darkness had made the confession easier. “I’m sorry. I can’t remember the last time I had someone to care about.”

 

Thor wrapped his arms around him tighter. “How long have you been alone, brave one?”

 

Shiro breathed deep of him; a crisp, clean scent like rain. “I don’t know. They…selectively edited my memories, I think. They left in the ones they thought would help me fight better. Enemies I’ve faced. Training I’ve received. And they left the ones from _before_ , from Earth. Who knows why: maybe it wasn’t worth the bother to them. But in between that—I had a team. I know I did. I sometimes remember—flashes. I know their faces now. I see them in my dreams. Sometimes I think I can almost remember names, places, conversations we’ve had. But—” Shiro shook his head. “For the most part, it’s all gone. All I can remember is that I used to remember. Useless as that is.”

 

Thor cursed beneath his breath. “But why?” he asked. “And how? That is dark magic, of a high caliber.”

 

“It was probably easy for them,” said Shiro bitterly. “After all, they created me.”

 

He had had time to think about it, over many planets and arenas. It was the logical conclusion. Shiro had seen the others, being grown in vats or strapped to tables; all of them strangers with his face. There were far too many of them for any claim at being the original to make any sense.

 

“Shiro?”

 

It was a struggle to say it. He didn’t know how. He couldn’t say what was in his heart: that he was a corpse with life inside, a shadow man, a defective imitation. A creature with sand where his heart was, created to kill, created for the arena. Thor was silent as he got out the words, jagged and incoherent and out of order as they were; held him through each one.

 

“I don’t really know that I’ve ever been to Earth,” said Shiro, a long while later. “I wonder if I’ve ever really met another human being. It doesn’t seem possible. The faces in my dreams may belong to the memories of another man. Maybe they don’t want me to find them. But I don’t know what else I can do except to try.”

 

Thor made a low sound, so deep that Shiro felt it in his chest. They were so close that Shiro could feel Thor’s lips brushing his forehead as he spoke.

 

“In Asgard,” he began, “we believe that Ragnorak, the end of all things, will come many times before the final blow. We fall and are reborn, again and again, for as long as the universe needs us. But if what you say is true, you’ve been reborn many times in your own lifetime. Takashi Shirogane, brave one: the world must need you badly.”

 

Shiro looked at him, uncertain, convinced he must be telling a joke, but Thor’s eyes held nothing but honesty. He forced himself to laugh, pushing air through suddenly frozen lips. “That’s—that isn’t how this works, Thor.”

 

“Is it not?” His fingers came up and cupped his cheek. Thor’s mouth was only centimeters away from his. “It is to me,” he said, and kissed him.

 

Thor was slow, and warm, and gentle, but the light press of his lips against Shiro’s mouth was like a spark igniting. Shiro felt fire unroll through his body, urgent and all-consuming. His hands, human and Galra, squeezed around Thor’s shoulders, pulling him closer.

 

Thor sat up, slowly, so that Shiro was straddling his lap. They were kissing deeply now, Thor’s tongue pressing against his mouth. Shiro opened for him, eager, needy; he wanted Thor to taste him, to touch him everywhere and make him real.

 

“Yes,” he whispered, as Thor’s hand began to creep beneath his shirt. “Please, yes, touch me, _touch me_ —”

 

He shivered as he felt Thor’s fingers on his naked skin. He felt as if there were electric currents running beneath his skin, felt almost jittery with desire, as if he would shake apart at the seams. He felt himself growing hard. He leaned in for another kiss, desperate for more, but Thor only brushed his lips against his ear. He said, softly,

 

“I want to look at you.”

 

Shiro shivered at the words. Taking in quick, shallow breaths, he stood, forcing himself to relax. Slowly, Thor undressed him.

 

He had closed his eyes as the last layer of clothing came off, not wanting to look at himself. He could only feel what Thor was doing as his hands traveled from his face down to his shoulders, and then gently over both arms. Shiro sucked in a breath when the hands stopped at his ribcage. His thumb traced lightly over the scars that crossed his chest.

 

“Don’t,” he gasped, opening his eyes. “Please. I’m not proud of them—”

 

He had won each one in the arena, killing for the entertainment of the Galra, or by the whips of his masters when he wouldn’t. Some of them he had even gotten the times he had been forced to fight Thor. They were a history of violence etched onto his skin; if he could tear it all off and begin again, he would—

 

Thor was kneeling in front of him. Shiro felt dizzied by the sight.

 

“They mean that you’ve survived,” he said simply. “I love them for that.”

 

He pressed his lips to the scars on his chest, kissing each with a lingering softness that bordered on reverence. Shiro couldn't remember, but he knew even so that it had been a very long time since he had been touched like this. Perhaps he had never been.

 

Thor looked up at him, then. His hand wrapped around Shiro’s cock, now painfully hard and dripping with pre-come.

 

“You’re beautiful,” he said, and took him into his mouth.

 

Shiro cried out, undone by the sensation of Thor’s tongue; he staggered back to the wall, but Thor only crawled forward on his knees and continued. His hands and his mouth were working together in a steady, sure rhythm that blocked out all thought. Shiro felt his hands come down to grip Thor’s hair. As his body shuddered against Thor’s mouth, he knew he would never, ever let anyone take this memory away from him.

 

* * *

 

 

The guards came the following evening, as they always did.

 

They had done their best to be ready, to resign themselves to having to fight the other, but their bodies knew each other now. They wanted to touch and to linger. Thor and Shiro were still holding hands when they were taken out of the cell.

 

This time, however, they were not separated. They were marched before the Champion’s gate together. Green-feathered attendants wheeled out carts full of weapons for them.

 

“They mean for us to fight together,” said Thor, sounding dazed. Then a brilliant smile crossed his face. “Together, Shiro! I am sure there is nothing we cannot—”

 

A hideous scream cut him off. Something was shrieking within the arena, something vast…and angry. Something that they were meant to fight.

 

Wordlessly, Shiro and Thor glanced at each other and picked up their helmets.

 

They touched hands once more before they entered the arena, just a brushing of knuckles, but it was enough. Shiro picked up his sword, and Thor a shield and a spear, and they entered the ring together.

 

The monster was truly huge, spiked and scaled like a dragon out of a wild fantasy story, but with many yellow eyes that saw them at once. Its head nearly came up to the top levels of the arena itself, and Shiro noticed that the seats nearest it were completely empty. Massive chains anchored it to the ground, going into the bedrock that existed below the sand. It screamed again as it saw them enter, revealing the inside of its red mouth, and the many layers of teeth around its forked tongue.

 

Hovering above it was the usual collection of hovering spacecraft, rich spacers who paid well to view fights from the comfort of their own corvettes. They seemed a little more precarious than usual, though: the monster’s head at its full height looked barely a few meters below the lowest of them, and most of them had their port doors open to better enjoy the view.

 

“Thor,” said Shiro, an idea coming to him.

 

“Yes, I see it.” He hefted the mace in his hand and smiled. “Shall we do it together, dear one?”

 

They ran for the monster at the same time, taking the squawking announcer by surprise. The crowd roared for them as they ran, even louder than the monster, and for once it didn’t make Shiro feel small. He ran ahead of Thor, holding out his arm, and fired heat bursts out of his palm, right at the side of the creature’s neck.

 

It recoiled from the blast, crying out; more in anger than in genuine hurt, Shiro thought, but it reflexively curled around its wound. Shiro ran, sent up a prayer to any god that believed in him, and leapt.

 

He landed lower than he had meant to. Shiro scrambled at the scales of the neck, trying to keep his grip, his sword falling down onto the sand below. His hand found a ridge of armor just as the monster swung its head, attention caught by something: Thor, who was still on the ground.

 

Desperation gave him quickness. Shiro made his way up the creature’s neck, hand by hand, wincing as he heard Thor taunting the beast. He could not spare a glance at what was happening; only Thor’s occasional shouted insults and the disappointed hissing of the crowd told him that he was still alive. His heart was a frightened animal inside his chest.

 

At last he reached the head. Shiro crawled out onto the bony ridge above the creature’s eyes, and felt twin surged of hope and despair. Thor was directly below the beast, trapped between the enormous forelegs. Sand covered half his face, but he was alive, and unwounded, and wonderfully defiant, shouting insults at the enormous maw above him.

 

“—And your mother was so ugly she crawled down to hell, and they put her in a beauty pageant! Your father crawled out the belly of a _verksuger!_ Your ancestors—”

 

Shiro held on for dear life as the massive head came down, jaws crashing down and sending walls of sand spraying in every direction. He could not see, for a moment, for the sand; could not breathe, either, for not hearing Thor’s voice, and then a hand appeared above the eye ridge. Shiro rushed to pull him up.

 

“You made it,” he breathed, not quite daring to believe.

 

“Of course I did!” said Thor, beaming. “You didn’t doubt me, did you?”

 

Shiro laughed out loud, despite it all.

 

“Then get ready,” he said. “I want to see Asgard.” He looked up quickly, calculating, and then fired a heat burst, powered as high as he could make it, directly into the creature’s eyes.

 

This time it screamed in real pain, jerking upwards, and the motion flung violently them through the air and directly into the open port door of the nearest of the hovering spacecraft.

 

The pilot and the passenger stared at them in horror; their entertainment had barging into their lives. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Shiro could read the thought, even in their alien faces.

 

“Get out,” he said, and they both ran to the ejection pod. Shiro rushed into the empty pilot’s seat, while Thor slammed closed the port doors. He could see, through the front viewing window, the astonished faces of the crowd, and the combat vehicles approaching in the distance. They had to leave, now. He looked over; Thor was still shaking a spear at the ground through the viewing window.

 

"Thor!" yelled Shiro. "The safety harness!"

 

He threw himself into the seat just before the incoming spacecraft could close in. Shiro rolled the craft over, tumbling around the possessions of the former owner, jagged upwards, and won himself a patch of clear sky. Without any hesitation, he surged them into hyperdrive.

 

A huge, almost overwhelming sense of freedom enveloped him. He had no idea where to start.

 

“Now what?” asked Shiro.

 

“Now,” said Thor, gone serious, “we must assemble a team and return to my homeworld. There is a great evil that has arisen there, and it threatens to bring about the end of the entire universe.”

 

Shiro was smiling. “You know,” he said, “Somehow I think I’ve heard that one before.”

 


End file.
